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The Arizona legislature has passed a bill and sent it to the state governor for signing or veto. If this bill becomes law, it will be a crime in Arizona to enter the country illegally. It would also make the police question a person’s immigration status if they suspect he may be illegal. Of course, Mexican officials are in a tizzy over the bill.

The Mexican government criticized Wednesday a tough immigration law approved this week by Arizona legislators, saying it could result in rights violations and racial profiling and affect cross-border relations.

“Rights violations”? I didn’t realize that entering a country illegally is a right. And when the majority of illegals crossing into Arizona are Mexicans, focusing on Hispanics isn’t racial profiling as much as operating on a description of the perpetrator.

Mexico’s Foreign Relations Department said in a statement relayed through Mexico’s U.S. embassy that it viewed the measure with great concern and said it “could have potentially serious effects on the civil rights” of Mexican nationals.

Again, nobody has the civil right to invade another country illegally. I find Mexico’s attitude on illegally crossing their northern border into the U.S. isn’t the same way they feel about people illegally crossing their southern border into Mexico.

Holding others to a standard while exempting yourself is the very definition of hypocrisy.

UPDATE (4/23/2010 3:18:09 PM): Arizona Governor Jan Brewer signed the bill into law. It will take effect in 90 days.

I believe that a good strong fence between both the U.S./Canada and U.S./Mexico borders would be a good thing. I see this as being the same, but on a grander scale, as putting a fence around your own yard. I don’t hate my neighbors, but I do like my privacy, and I don’t want people wandering around my yard just for the fun of it. I recently noticed that wasps had created some paper nests under the eaves of my roof, so I picked up a can of Wasp-Be-Dead and sprayed them. And since there was plenty left in the can, I wandered over to my neighbor, an elderly lady, and asked if I could check for wasp nests around her home. Yes, I’m just that nice. Besides, I like doing whatever I can to help her, and she has no problem with asking me for help when she needs heavy or tall things moved. But even though I have a good relationship with my neighbor, I would not consider wandering through her yard without asking permission first. That’s just being polite.

But illegal immigrants who cross over our borders are being worse than impolite, and they know it. That is why there are problems on the southern border. As part of a plan to stem the flood of illegal aliens crossing our southern border, Congress has passed a bill calling for 700 miles of fence to be built. This bill is waiting for President Bush to sign it, and I hope he does. But not everyone wants President Bush to sign the bill and start the building of the wall. Specifically, Mexico doesn’t want the wall to be built:

Mexico’s foreign secretary said Monday the country may take a dispute over U.S. plans to build a fence on the Mexican border to the United Nations.

Luis Ernesto Derbez told reporters in Paris, his first stop on a European tour, that a legal investigation was under way to determine whether Mexico has a case.

The Mexican government last week sent a diplomatic note to Washington criticizing the plan for 700 miles of new fencing along the border. President-elect Felipe Calderon also denounced the plan, but said it was a bilateral issue that should not be put before the international community.

A legal investigation to see whether Mexico has a case to stop our fence? The hell?!? This isn’t a matter of someone violating a mutually-signed community homeowners’ covenant banning fences, this is a matter of the United States limiting the illegal entrance of lawbreakers into its own country, and the United Nations be damned.

While I like much of what Warren Meyer of Coyote Blog writes, I have to disagree with his view that there is no difference between the Berlin Wall and a fence on our southern border. There is a difference — the one is designed to keep people in, while the other is to keep people out. The Berlin Wall kept people in East Germany against their will, much as a prison fence does to the inmates inside. But the proposed border fence is designed to keep people out, much like the fence around your property. And other than a difference of scale, is there any other difference between the border fence and the fence around your own home? I can’t think of one.

Have you ever noticed that there are places where you feel free to just walk on in, and other places where you always knock first? When I visit my Grandma, I never knock; I just walk on in and give her a big hug. I also learned that I could just walk into my mom-in-law’s house with a shout of “Who’s naked?” to let people know I was there. But when I visit my parents, I always knock first, and I don’t really know why. I certainly feel perfectly accepted in my parents’ home, so it is not as if there is some barrier of unkind feelings in place. The only thing I can possibly think that would explain the difference is the newness of my parents’ place. I guess it just does not feel like home to me.

In the not-so-distant past, people used to know their neighbors more than we do today. It was no big deal to pop over to the next-door neighbor to ask for a cup of milk or some eggs. But I think those days have passed us by. Do you have that type of relationship with your neighbors, or are you like most of us–too busy to just sit down and get to know them? There is something sad about how the times have changed this way. If you are like most people, you might recognize your neighbors, but you would be hard pressed to remember their names. And like most people, you probably keep the house locked up tight while you are home and away.

Would you mind if your neighbors felt comfortable enough in your home to just walk in uninvited? Would you care if they brought their friends with them or showed complete strangers how easy it was to waltz on into your unlocked home? If you are like me and a product of our times, the idea of someone unknown having access to the house gives you the heebie-jeebies. Now imagine that some nutcase has issued death threats against you and your family, and he has already been caught once burglarizing your home. Would you ever leave the doors unlocked? No! You would buy some extra deadbolts and install a potent security system. After all, we are talking about your family!

Right now, our nation is like an unlocked house. Every day illegal aliens cross the porous borders into our national home. If everyone were kind and thoughtful, then we would not mind them dropping by to say hello. But since there are people out there whose primary goal in life is to kill us, it is foolhardy to leave the doors open and let everyone into our nation. Before you think I am anti-immigrant, let me clearly state that I am not. I am all in favor of legal immigrants, as I am a descendant of legal immigrants. If you are a foreigner and you want to become a law-abiding citizen of the United States, I welcome you with open arms. But if you start off by breaking the law as you illegally sneak into this country, I do not have much faith that you will improve your outlook on our country and our laws. And if you are someone who has illegally crossed these borders, then I do not want you to remain in this country. I do not care whether you came from Mexico or Canada, Hong Kong or England. If you did not get here legally, then you are persona non grata, and I want you gone.

Is this harsh? No harsher than calling the cops to boot out someone who has broken into your home. I do not see a difference between the protection I want surrounding my home, and that which I want surrounding my nation. But not everyone sees it this way. My mom-in-law teaches grade school, and she knows which families are here illegally, but she cannot ask the parents or the kids if they are. If she did, she would be sued and possibly fired. Apparently this question violates their civil rights, but how does anyone have the civil right to do something illegal? This must somehow make sense in the minds of the liberals who drafted these laws and the loony ACLU who fought for these “rights.”

I once stood on a bridge crossing the Rio Grande, right on the painted line marking the border between the U.S. and Mexico. In the fifteen minutes I stood there and watched, I counted eight people wading through the low-running river and passing through a fence into the United States. One lady paid a kid to push her across the river in a little raft so she would not have the tell-tale wet pants of someone who had just waded the river. Multiply this scenario by the long length of the U.S.-Mexico border, and you may begin to get an idea of just how porous our borders are.

Governor Gray Davis of California signed the Illegal Alien Drivers’ License bill on Sept. 5, 2003. At that time he said, “They deserve the right to drive.” No, Governor, they do not deserve that right. They are not here legally, so they should not enjoy the privileges that come with legal status. Gov. Davis knows that this is a terrible idea, since he vetoed the bill twice already, but now that he is desperate to keep his governorship, he is blatantly catering to the Latino vote. And since the Motor-Voter laws make it simple to register to vote if you have a driver’s license, this opens up California to massive voter fraud. For this act alone, Gov. Davis should be removed from office. Harsh? Yes. But anyone who is this willing to throw open the doors to illegal aliens has violated his oath of office to defend against all enemies, foreign and domestic. And this law makes it ridiculously easy for foreign enemies to gain a valid driver’s license in California and spread out through our home–the United States–to do their work of evil. I think it’s high time that we called the cops to kick them out of our home.